I’ve always been a lover of statistics when it comes to sports. As a child, I collected baseball cards and was way more interested in the back of the card than the front. I would put the cards of my favorite players in protective binder sleeves with the backs facing forward, just so I would see the stats first. With a push towards analytics and sabermetrics, one now needs a degree from MIT to be able to understand stats in baseball. I mean, can anyone explain to me what FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) measures? I mean seriously, what the hell is this? FIP = ((13*HR)+(3*(BB+HBP))-(2*K))/IP + constant. It’s enough to make your head spin.

When they don’t go overboard like baseball, statistics can give us a fantastic way to visualize performance in sport. In regards to obstacle racing, there are many ways these numbers can give us a better look at our sport. For mandatory obstacle completion races such as OCRWC, band retention stats can help quantify how difficult the race was, or how tough specific obstacles were. For races like WTM, we can see how hard it is to reach that coveted 50 mile mark, or just how much better Ryan Atkins is than pretty much everyone else.

So here is what I’ve been doing with my apparently infinite free time (should have been training). I’ve made spreadsheets for every year of World’s Toughest Mudder and input the data using the results. I then turned those into column charts to further illustrate the numbers. For the earlier years, there is only placement for the top 10 or just the winners. For those I had to count each finisher at each mileage, so there may be a couple discrepancies here and there, but this should be very accurate give or take a few competitors. I only did this for individuals because the team event has not taken place every year, and the format has changed a few times.

2017 World’s Toughest Mudder

50 miles is a big goal number for anyone that competes at World’s Toughest Mudder, and 2017 exemplifies that with the highest total number of 50 mile finishers of any WTM. 2017 WTM saw over 400 people claim their 50 mile bib! It seems people really push themselves to get beyond the 45 mile mark and finish with 50. There is a very low number of finishers with exactly 45 miles. You can also see that people may be pretty happy getting that 50 miles bib and not continuing further, as there are a relatively low amount of 55 mile finishers compared to 50 mile finishers.

2016 World’s Toughest Mudder

2016 WTM was very similar to 2017, although it did see almost 11% more competitors make it to at least the 55 mile mark. It also saw over 50% of competitors reach at least 50 miles. The half century mark was by far the highest finisher spot with over 26% of the field finishing with exactly 50 miles. This year also saw the highest average mileage for male competitors at 45 miles.

2015 World’s Toughest Mudder

I am no WTM historian, and was not there, but I believe 2015 was the coldest year in Vegas with temps reaching the low 40’s. If that was the case, the stats show that with very high numbers finishing in the 25-35 range. Over 36% of competitors finished in that range. 2015 still saw more finishers at 50 miles than any other mileage, but trailed closely by 25 mile finishers.

2014 World’s Toughest Mudder

The first year in the desert brought the infamous sandstorm. This took a toll on mileage as you can see the chart is very similar to 2015 with the colder temps, but actually has a 25 mile finisher rate than 50 miles. 2014 was the only time in Vegas where that occurred.

2013 World’s Toughest Mudder

2013’s chart looks extremely similar to 2016 and 2017. Almost 52% finished at least 50 miles. Very impressive for the last run in NJ. The temps were quite a bit higher this year than the other years in NJ though, so the weather was more favorable. This year had the highest average mileage for women, and just edged out 2016 for highest average mileage total.

2012 World’s Toughest Mudder

Tough race, but it looks as though more people knew what to expect this year vs 2011. The temps were warmer, but still, only 3o% of competitors made it beyond 3 laps/30 miles.

2011 World’s Toughest Mudder

Just brutal! Over 55% of competitors bailed after their first lap, and another 25% were gone after finishing the second. So 80% of people that started only made it 16 miles. This was the only WTM that took place in December, and temperatures were frigid. The low temp was in the mid 20’s and people just weren’t having it. It also needs to be noted that they did not start mileage awards till a couple years later. I actually only think they counted the winners as official finishers, so there wasn’t that incentive to keep pushing or to even have a mileage goal. One other thing of note about 2011 is the women actually had a higher average mileage than the men. This was the only year that has happened.

World’s Toughest Mudder 2011-2017

These are the composite charts for all seven years of World’s Toughest Mudder. You can really see just how rare it is to finish with more than 75 miles, as just over 1% of the almost 7400 total competitors have done so. Hell, less than 14% have made it beyond the 50 mile mark. I’m also a little surprised at just how few women have competed in this event. There have been over 7 times more men run WTM over the years than women. This sport has always been dominated by men when it comes to numbers, but it is slowly trending up for the women at WTM. I think the addition of the Toughest Mudder 8 HR series will only help bring more participants to World’s Toughest Mudder, as it really provides people the opportunity to get acclimated to doing these longer OCR events.

ATL

I for one am extremely excited for WTM 2018, as it will take place about 25 minutes from my house, and be my first go at the grueling event. I’m hesitant to name a goal mileage at this point, because a lot can happen in the next 340 plus days. The 30 miles I finished at Toughest South were the most I’ve ever run in one event. I’d like to at least double that next November, but regardless, I can’t wait to be a part of this amazing event. Here’s to hoping I end up on the right side of the statistics!